Not PC

. . . promoting capitalist acts between consenting adults.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Arise, Sir Ed.

My favourite story of Sir Ed.

WHEN HILLARY AND TENZING reached the top of Everest for the first time, the story goes that Tenzing fell to his knees and gave thanks to the spirits that had helped their journey; he prayed to each of the four winds, and he carefully placed in the ground a small stake on which prayer ribbons were attached. While he was doing this, Hillary stuck a flag in the ground, unzipped his fly and took a piss.

This was his mountain. That's how a man like Sir Ed celebrates a huge achievement.

Friday, January 11, 2008

There's no government like no government...

In a surprising but welcome announcement the duty minister said yesterday that Parliament would not be reconvening in the foreseeable future as “the country seems to be getting on pretty well without politicians”.

Speaking from Kakamoana Motor Camp in Northland where he is currently holidaying, Trevor Mallard said he has spoken with the leaders of all other parties and they were in agreement that the summer break from the House should be extended indefinitely...

Nazism = Socialism = Totalitarianism

Only yesterday Poneke was expressing amusement that In the comments section of one of his posts, Trevor Loudon says he regards the National Front, the Italian fascists and the German Nazis as left wing. "I kid you not." Never one to back down when he has truth on his side, Trevor's come out swinging, explaining this morning why fascists are leftists.

Since the debate has been thus re-opened, perhaps I could point debaters once again to the observation that while HItler's National Socialists didn't nationalise the economy's commanding heights as Lenin would have had them do; they didn't need to -- as Hitler said, they nationalised people instead. Political correctness at the point of a gun. The result for Hitler's Germany and in the end for most of Europe was the same as it was for Lenin's Russia. Destruction.

De facto government ownership of the means of production... was logically implied by such fundamental collectivist principles embraced by the Nazis as that the common good comes before the private good and the individual exists as a means to the ends of the State. If the individual is a means to the ends of the State, so too, of course, is his property. Just as he is owned by the State, his property is also owned by the State.

Contrary to myth, Germany was a socialist state, not a capitalist one. And socialism, understood as an economic system based on government ownership of the means of production, positively requires a totalitarian dictatorship. Indeed, the identification of Nazi Germany as a socialist state was one of the many great contributions of Ludwig von Mises.

And as if your eyebrows aren't already heading for the ceiling, here's another claim of Reisman's that might get them there that is arguably even more important than the title thesis: "In the United States at the present time, we do not have socialism in any form. And we do not have a dictatorship, let alone a totalitarian dictatorship." Read on to find out what Reisman says about the present system in the US, and by implication the rest of the west. We do not have a dictatorship, he says we also do not yet have Fascism. "Among the essential elements that are still lacking are one-party rule and censorship. We still have freedom of speech and press and free elections," he says...

We know that number was wildly exaggerated. The news is that now we know why.

It turns out the Lancet study was funded by anti-Bush partisans and conducted by antiwar activists posing as objective researchers. It also turns out the timing was no accident. You can find the fascinating details in the current issue of National Journal magazine, thanks to reporters Neil Munro and Carl Cannon. And sadly, that may be the only place you'll find them. While the media were quick to hype the original Lancet report -- within a week of its release it had been featured on 25 news shows and in 188 newspaper and magazine articles -- something tells us this debunking won't get the same play.

The Lancet death toll was more than 10 times what had been estimated by the U.S. and Iraqi governments, and even by human rights groups...

The Lancet study could hardly be more unreliable. Yet it was trumpeted by the political left because it fit a narrative that they wanted to believe. And it wasn't challenged by much of the press because it told them what they wanted to hear. The truth was irrelevant.

The study used a methodology known as "cluster sampling," which can be valid if using real data and not anecdotal reporting. Most of the original Lancet clusters reported no deaths at all, with the journal admitting, "two-thirds of all violent deaths were reported in one cluster in the city of Fallujah." Fallujah? Hello?

Fallujah at the time just happened to be a major concentration of pro-Saddam and anti-American sentiment, the home base for the homicide bombers and terrorist "resistance" before the U.S. Army and Marines cleared out that nest of thugs.

It's not just that much of the press and the blogosphere won't want to admit the 'sexed up' death toll they so gleefully reported a year ago was wrong, it's not just that they hate to retract, it's also that they don't want to have to admit -- even to themselves -- that the counterinsurgency strategy implemented by General David Petraeus is working, that by any decent standard Petraeus is the Man of 2007, and that the Iraqis are generally better off now than they were under a bloody, murdering dictator. To most of the world's press, the truth remains irrelevant to their 'narrative.'

In a world awash with non-objective journalism, thank goodness for the Wall Street Journal.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Minto vs history (updated)

In a recent Herald opinion piece former NZ Prime Minister Mike Moore made a statement obvious enough to any student of history not blinded by flawed ideology: "Without secure property rights poverty will endure."

John Minto is blinded by flawed ideology. Point number one of Marx's Communist Manifesto calls for the abolition of private property. Leon Trotsky pointed out with some glee that where there is no private ownership, individuals can be easily bent to the will of the state under threat of starvation or worse. John Minto still lives in the shadows cast by these two gentlemen, leading him to place before Herald readers this morning the outrageous lie that "property rights often mean little, if anything, to people in poverty."

It's hard to know here to start with this claim. He begins by lying about poverty in the US, carries on to ignore the history of property rights and the wholesale destruction of poverty whenever property rights were protected, and concludes with his outrageous lie intended to gull careless readers into accepting his own malodorous world view.

The fact is that property rights protect our lives and the fruits of our labours -- they allow us to pan long range. As Hernando de Soto points out (de Soto being one of the folk singled out of Minto's barbs), when property rights are insecure, residents of poor shanty towns build their furniture before their walls or roofs. That's rational behaviour when time horizons are short. As property rights become more secure and their time horizons become longer, however, people can build their walls, their roofs, and then plant crops and trade and make plans that take months or even years to come to fruition. This is what it means to create wealth - wealth being the opposite of poverty, as some of you might recall.

If Mr Minto is blind to those basic facts, there's no need for you to be.

The fact is, the material values we each produce keep us alive, and allow us to flourish. Only ghosts can survive without this property; human beings cannot. Secure property rights allow us to project our values into longer and longer time horizons; the more secure, the further our horizons. They allow us to bring to bear the unmatchable power of our minds to the pursuit and creation of wealth and human flourishing.

Unlike other animals, human beings cannot survive as we come into the world; in order to stay alive and to flourish we each need to produce and to keep the fruits of our production.

Tom Bethell’s landmark book The Noblest Triumph: Property and Prosperity Through the Ages traces successes and disasters of history consequent upon the respective recognition or denial of property through the ages: Ireland’s potato famine, the desertification of the Sahara and the near-disasters of U.S. colonies at Jamestown and Plymouth can all be traced to lack of respect for property. The glorious triumph of the Industrial Revolution is the greatest vindication.

cannot easily be recognised in a society that lacks the secure, decentralised, private ownership of goods. These are: liberty, justice, peace, and prosperity. The argument of [his] book [and of history] is that private property is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for these highly desirable social outcomes.

Property rights give us a Turangawaewae, a firm place to stand deserving of legal protection. Their identification and recognition was an enormous advance in intellectual history, and the practical result of their application across both history and geography has been the destruction of poverty.

It is only the poverty of stale Marxism that could blind a man to something so obvious.

UPDATE 1: Liberty Scott points out "there is a country that echoes Minto’s vision of virtually no property rights, and the sort of true democracy I was talking about – its capital is Pyongyang. Global Peace and Justice is the euphemism for Global Revolution and Socialism."

Nixon in New Hampshire

Street fighting men against free speech (updated)

Over recent weeks Trevor Loudon has been searching out links between local anarchists and peace activists, their associations with the Green Party, Zapatistas and international anarchist networks, and the weapons training so many of these peace lovers were undergoing in the Ureweras. (See the many, many posts he's made making the links at his weblog, New Zeal). While the Green party has maintained a stoic silence, this has upset the anarchists and so called peace activists. So much so that at Indymedia where they hang out, they're talking about where Trevor lives ...

...also they [Trevor and his family]live in a freakishly clean suburb called Northwood where there are rules for everything from the car you park in the driveway to the amount of money you spend on landscaping. Would anyone like the address? phone number?Another has added; He [Trevor] has a file in the Suspected Child Molester data base at CTF, in another words, he likes young boys .

Trevor no longer lives in Northwood (so don't bother firebombing the suburb) but as he says, "you can see how this sort of carry on might be intimidating on several fronts." Certainly can. He makes the point that the left tend to attack or intimidate those who oppose them. It's a common modus operandi, to vilify rather than oppose honestly (perhaps because socialists overwhelmingly view others as a route to their own power, and as Chris Trotter has written are prepared to accept any corruption as long as it keeps the left in office*). It's something even Barrack Obama is enduring at present with wild talk of assassination in the air -- a "meme" Obama rival Hillary Clinton is apparently willing to have used to her advantage.

Even so, Labour's Electoral Finance Act requires individuals expressing political opinions such as Don't Vote Labour to publish their names and addresses, leaving them and those they live with open targets to any nutjob under the sun.

This can't be right. It certainly isn't free speech.

-------------------------

* Zen Tiger's recent comment about Trotter is spot on: "Chris Trotter is a man of standards. He has at least two of them. And double standards equip the left so very well to argue their way to electoral victory."

UPDATE: From Jack Wheeler's To the Point comes this comment, which is, um, exactly to the point:

If you Google "Obama" and "assassination" you will get 384,000 hits. All over the world, the media is speculating on the possibility. Typical is the January 8 (the day of the New Hampshire primary) headline in one of Australia's major newspapers, The Australian: Obama Must Be Wary of the Assassin's Gun. The "news angle" of thousands of such stories is the same. The first line of The Australian story is: "Barrack Obama is crazy brave. His victory in Iowa puts him in the crosshairs of many a gun-toting racist for whom the thought of a black president is an abomination." It's the drumbeat theme echoing around the globe: evil racist-fascist right-wing war-mongering child-eating nazi conservatives will always destroy America's hopes of being a peaceful humanitarian nation. After all, it was just such a fascist-nazi right-winger that murdered JFK and killed Camelot, right? What's that? Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist? Oh... Please ignore that impossibly embarrassing fact. Especially since it brings up the real question that no liberal dares to think, much less ask: Will Hillary find an Oswald of her own to take out Obama?

Holiday viewing

'Twas the season to kick back catch up on essential holiday viewing. Here's some of the holiday films and DVDs I managed to fit in this year. Lack of decent rain rather kept the viewing down:

Glenn Miller Story - perfect Christmas day viewing. Spooks - catching up on all the episodes I missed back in Season Two. Truly nail-biting drama! House - catching up on Season Three. Who has time to watch TV during the year? The Prisoner - there's always someone who needs to be (re)introduced. Twilight Zone - classic Rod Serling episodes so sharp you cut yourself. Wicker Man - "You'll simply never understand the true nature of sacrifice..." Casablanca - always worth re-watching. Third Man - Orson Welles does Graham Greene. Twin genii. Marnie - a reminder that Sean Connery was once almost too good for film. The Town is Quiet - Marseilles on a bad week. Dark Blue World - excellent Czech Battle of Britain romance - and some great flying scenes.

Now I look back at the list, it must have rained more than I remembered! So what did you curl up in front of in your cinema room over the holidays ?

Depressing

Oswald's quip below is short, to the point and as accurate as so many of his quips often are:

"...The number of people receiving the sickness benefit due to depression has more than doubled in the past five years..." [Source: Stuff] What depresses the crap out of me is the amount of income tax I'm paying! It's not just being on the dole thats depressing!

Holiday House 2 - Organon Architecture

Yesterday I posted what I called Holiday House 1 to show you my idea of the ideal bach -- something integrated with its site; something casual enough to be relaxing yet with cunning aplenty to make it work well, and enough visual strength not to be overawed by its setting. Here this evening is what I'll call Holiday House 2, also by Organon Architecture , using two large cantlivered 'hypar' shells to define space and shelter. I think it has something of the same qualities as Holiday House 1, if I say so myself, and would grace any private, sloping bush-clad site overlooking water. Or open country.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Zero emissions? Only of good sense.

Al Gore III won an Oscar, an Emmy and a Nobel Peace Prize for a film in which he claims "You can even reduce your carbon emissions to zero." Good luck doing that. Below the telling observation that "It is the nature of civilization to use energy and it’s the nature of liberalism to feel bad about it," Robert Bryce notes his amazement that

none of the dozens of smart people involved in the production of the movie – including, particularly, Gore himself – paused to wonder aloud something to the effect of, “Hey, what about breathing? Don’t we produce carbon dioxide through respiration?”

The answer, is yes, we do. Thus, by including the claim that you can “reduce your carbon emissions to zero” the film’s producers might as well have hung a sign around Gore’s neck that says “I’m an idiot.”

Frankly, that's how I feel every time I read, see or hear yet another of the Goracle's weighty pronouncements. But let's just say you chose to keep breathing and go right on living (that's right, you can stop holding you breath now, Darlene). You'd find out pretty soon that the goal of "zero emission" is not intended to be real -- this, after all, is politics not science -- it is intended only as an "aspirational" goal. That's the way Helen Clark and David Parker mean it when they recite the same braindead incantation, calling for us all to follow Gore's triad of virtue and get on our bikes, change our light bulbs and start planting things.

But even that's a nonsense. As a recent Australian report showed, "if every Australian household switched to renewable energy and stopped driving their cars tomorrow, total household emissions would decline by only about 18%." The triad of virtue is just another triumph of hot air. The fact is, as page five of the Australian report points out (and this is a report by the Australian Conservation Foundation, hardly the skeptic's friend), the carbon dioxide embedded in the food we eat and the goods we purchase are "more than four times the emissions from our personal use of electricity."

How about we stop the nonsense, and start recognising that the only emissions that are ever likely to be near zero are those coming from politicians when measured for the sense they contain.

New site: Climate Debate Daily.

Denis Dutton has gone and done it again. You should already be familiar with his Arts & Letters Dailysite -- compulsory browsing at least once a week for anyone who uses the web for something more than just hooking up on Facebook. Now he's collaborating in a new project that seems just as likely to be on every thinking web user's list of essential reading: Climate Debate Daily, a regular summation of the latest news and writing from both the sceptical and warmist sides of the global warming debate.

Bookmark it now. Here's some top reading from each camp currently appearing on the front page:

2007 was the seventh warmest year since record-keeping began, the IPCC says, and made for brutal weather...continue »

The year of global cooling. In 2007, hundreds of people died, not from global warming, but from cold weather hazards. And look at the Southern Hemisphere...continue »

Thanks to global warming huge swaths of right-wing America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles...continue »

Virtual science, the kind the IPCC uses to scare us to death, is ripe for manipulation, usually unconsciously, by virtuous scientists. Michael Duffy explains...continue »

We are in for a minimum of 90 more years of warming no matter how many Hummers are junked in favor of Priuses. Let's adapt...continue »

Better for Australia to cut the panic and build “a strong economy and thus the adaptive capacity to deal with whatever catastrophes unaided nature may have in store for us”...continue »

Auckland's planners giving developers the heave-ho

Developers are leaving Auckland. This is not new -- the folks who build the city have been quietly leaving for some time in the face of increasing impositions on their efforts -- but apartment developer Conrad Properties decided to speak to Bob Dey to explain why they've had enough.

The short answer is that development in Auckland is now uneconomic. They point the finger squarely at Auckland City Council, saying they're to blame for two things at least:

One is the introduction this year of an Auckland City Council plan change setting minimum sizes for apartments, and the other is the council's policy on development contributions.

The combined effect of both impositions is to add $120,000 to the cost of a two-bedroom unit, and this is on top of the increased costs and sundry delays associated with changes to the Building Act. The cost of the "development contributions" alone -- which is a means by which the Resource Management Act allows council to put their hand even further into property owners' pockets -- amounts to around $70,000 per unit.

Annie Fox explains the sort of thing on which this money is usually wasted by council once extracted: "purchasing multi-million-dollar properties at inflated prices."

One that got my blood boiling for it's total stupidity, was the purchase of the SuperLiquor site on the corner of Ponsonby Road & O'Neill Street, for a staggering $7 million. Retail? I hear you ask. However, not for retail, but to be demo'ed and turned into a park! The most ridiculous place for a public park, it will be small, which in itself isn't a problem (small parks can be charming) but with roads on two sides (one being a main road) it will be bloody awful place to sit. It will be empty 99% of the time, and anyway within 1km of this site there are 8 reserves and 16 within 2kms. Apparently, they had to make a purchase to justify all the reserve contributions they have been taking over the years. Why didn't they just give the money back to the developers?

Good question. Another question should be why they're allowed to damn well take the money in the first place. The answer is the Resource Management Act, which gives council's carte blanche to boss developers around and to make them pay for it.

But Conrad Properties and developers like them aren't paying any more. They're getting the hell out -- and who could blame them -- leaving the supply of Auckland housing up to ... whom?

The fact is that the real culprit here isn't the council officers or planners or regulators who make the plans that are forcing developers out; the real culprits are the Resource Management Act that gives planners and regulators the power over other people's property, and a culture that assumes that local governments need planners and regulators to plan and control the city. They don't. On this point I'm four-square behind the Anti-Planner Randal O'Toole, who says that,

"After more than 30 years of reviewing government plans, including forest plans, park plans, watershed plans, wildlife plans, energy plans, urban plans and transportation plans, I've concluded that government planning almost always does more harm than good."

How absurd that New Zealanders can no longer make a political statement in an election year without satisfying a welter of petty regulation... ... it is on the web, a new frontier of attempted regulation, that Labour's red tape will be most resented. The act's restrictions on election material expressly exempts "the publication by an individual, on a non-commercial basis, on the internet of his or her personal political views ... " Bloggers might have little difficulty fitting that definition but they will need to be aware that should their site acquire more than one author or, heaven forbid, make some money in some way from their political observations, the speech patrol could be down on them. It is outrageous that they even need to concern themselves with such rules. When people come to wonder what has happened to a freedom they once took for granted, the answer is seldom a single, memorable edict. It is more often a hundred trifling rules, requirements and restrictions, each defensible within the logic of the law but together oppressive in their effect.

That's the way that freedom ends. That's the way that freedom ends. Not with a bang but a whimper. If you've never understood how to boil a frog alive, then here's your answer: not with a single bold move to turn the tepid water hot, but by a hundred trifling raises of temperature until the frog has ceased to wonder what happened to the tepid temperatures it once took for granted. So it goes.

Now THIS is what I call a holiday house ...

Someone emailed me in support of John Key's bach. Well, of what John Key and a journalist claim is a bach.

They reckon it's a beaut bach, just as John Boy obviously does.

Well, I don't. I know what baches should look like.

Here's one here. Yes, I've posted it here before, but here's my own favourite unbuilt bach. Relaxed. Casual. Open. Expansive. And yes, it's one I designed myself. Let's call it Holiday House 1. (Click on pics to enlarge.)

UPDATE: The pictures above show the house in mid-summer, in mid- to late-afternoon, when shade is your friend and the large eaves do their work. Here's a picture of the house at the same time of day in mid-winter, showing the penetration of the sun at the time when it's wanted:

Moore correctly says that the Commission's demand that he include his name and address on the site "is a breach of freedom of speech," and at this stage he has no plans to knuckle under. Good on him, I say.

But there are others who are less supportive of free speech. Martin Bradbury for instance, who says "you want to be an attack dog for the right, you gotta be registered" -- which to translate from oaf-ese means "Register with the government in order to criticise the Government." Brilliant! Or: "Disagree with me, and I will defend to to the death the necessity for you to be muzzled." With 'allies' like that, free speech hardly needs enemies.

Perhaps protagonists here should be reminded again of some of life's verities. That, as Salman Rushdie points out, without the freedom to offend, then freedom of expression ceases to exist. And those still left defending the Electoral Finance Act might like to be reminded of the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said that "it is error alone that needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

Free speech is a precious and delicate flower. As Saudi blogger Fouad al-Fahran has discovered in being arrested for violating Shari'ah laws on free speech (“everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah”) it is a flower all too easily pruned.

Cancer Card rescinded

The old Cancer Card gets you out of doing anything boring at all if you don't want to – work included. Fan-bloody-tastic, should have got cancer ages ago! The mysterious thing about the Cancer Card is that its power increases the sicker you become, so after about your 4th course of chemo its power will probably be at its peak and provides many, many a free-pass. The only thing Cancer Card can't actually do is cure cancer. But I noticed a disturbing thing the other day - mine had vanished! No I hadn't left it in the car to be stolen by the local yobs. But ever so slowly, as I got better and better, its power had diminished. It's like a muscle, the less you use it, the weaker it becomes, until eventually it withers & dies.

Command and control education okay, says Minto

The Urewera 17 transcripts and John Minto's close association with all the protagonists was enough to show that the motives of his Global Peace and Justice mob were the reverse of those suggested by the name. It was certainly neither peace nor justice that the snipers' rifles and molotov cocktails were intended to produce. Minto's other interest, of course, is the Quality Public Education Forum, and like GPJ, it's another mis-named front. As his rebuke to Tim Shadbolt over the issue of educational innovation demonstrates, it's neither quality nor education that interests him. It's control.

Southland Institute of Technology (SIT) has used the government's tertiary 'voucher scheme' to deliver innovative education systems country-wide, says SIT's mayoral champion Tim Shadbolt, in courses that compete with other providers in both content and delivery. But the government's new command-and-control tertiary scheme, which has seen him announce a year-long campaign of opposition, will kill SIT's innovative approach, he says, and kill off the opportunity of education for many youngsters who relish the teaching tools used in SIT's classrooms. "There are kids in South Auckland who will miss out [if the courses are dropped]," says Shadbolt, pointing out for example that SIT's courses that use TV and computers as teaching tools had been successful with those who had difficulty in traditional classrooms. "A lot of street kids find paperwork off-putting. They're more comfortable with computers and TV and are prepared to have a go."

But this is competition and innovation delivering quality education. That's not what Minto is for. Minto literally wants to "erase 'entrepreneurialism' from the curriculum." Showing his true colours, Minto insists Shadbolt and SIT should sit still, stop innovating, and do just as the education commissars tell them to, which means to butt out of competing and possibly showing up other educational providers. Competition in education, under which SIT and its students have flourished, creates a "pointless and wasteful turf war" according to Minto, adding nothing to education "but the false notion of choice based on glossy brochures." Such is Minto's notion of competition. Organisations competing for your favour create a "pointless and wasteful turf war" and "a false notion of choice based on glossy brochures." He would prefer the system more familiar to Soviet housewives, it seems: the empty shelves and substandard produce of a commissar controlled collective.

It would be a "tragedy for all young New Zealanders," says Minto, "if Mayor Shadbolt's campaign to undermine the new [command and control] funding mechanism is successful." In fact, it would be an even greater tragedy if Minto were accepted as a genuine supporter of quality education. Like peace and justice, it's of little interest to him except as a front for his real interest: Marxism.

UPDATE: By the way, if you're wondering why the the names of two of the groups associated with New Zealand's recent "terrorist camp" raids sound so benign ("Global Peace and Justice Auckland," spearheaded by communist John Minto and "Peace Action Wellington" by sniper rifle traineeValerie Morse), then as Lindsay Perigo suggests, "Think Gramsci."

A nuclear Taliban

The conflict in Pakistan is one in which we all have a direct stake, says Robert Tracinski. "Not only is Northwest Pakistan serving as a safe haven for Taliban fighters fighting US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, but Pakistan is the only majority-Muslim nation that has nuclear weapons."

After the assassination of Benazir Bhutto however, American foreign policy in Pakistan is in trouble. Says Elan Journo at the Ayn Rand Institute, that's no surprise: it was "in disarray long before the assassination."

U.S. diplomats have been scrambling for months to do something about the growing power of Islamists in the nuclear-armed nation which Washington hails as a “major non-NATO ally.” Having supported President Musharraf’s authoritarian regime, Washington helped broker the deal to allow Bhutto back into Pakistan, hoping she might create a pro-U.S. regime, but then decided to push Musharraf to share power with Bhutto, then insisted that he’s “indispensable,” but also flirted with the idea of backing Bhutto. All this against the backdrop of the creeping Talibanization of Pakistan. Islamist fighters once “restricted to untamed mountain villages along the [Pakistani-Afghan] border,” now “operate relatively freely in cities like Karachi,” according to Newsweek. The Taliban “now pretty much come and go as they please inside Pakistan.” They are easily slipping in and out of neighboring Afghanistan to arm and train their fighters, and foster attacks on the West. Why has Washington proven so incapable of dealing with this danger to U.S. security? The answer lies in how we embraced Pakistan as an ally.

There is no conspiracy here from the US, just vacillation and appeasement. Read on here to find out why it was American weakness rather than strength that encouraged the crisis whereby Islamic totalitarians have got closer than ever before to getting their hands on nuclear weapons.

Leave the Key under the mat, please

When you get to the voting booth this year and your blue pen is hovering over John Key's name -- getting ready to write him a blank cheque based on little more than a nice smile, a good story and the ability to change his mind at the drop of an order paper -- give some thought to his choice of architecture. Any man who can stand proudly outside a house like this with that proud look of ownership on his face has to be treated with considerable caution.

It is difficult to know where to begin. Here is a house (described somewhat disingenuously by the Herald as a "bach") which has the appearance of a miniature office building. Rather than its present location at Omaha Beach, its design suits it to a business park on the outskirts of the city, conveniently near major transport hubs. The reader should note the extravagant and charmless cornice, apparently supported by massive piers, as well as the floor-to-ceiling windows in tinted glass. The reader should note these and resolve never to have a home with these features; unless, that is, he should wish to have regular visits from photocopier salesmen, for surely they will flock to his door.

Should one be visiting Mr Key in his holiday home, whether to attempt to sell office products or for social reasons, it would be very bad form to tap one of those seemingly weighty piers. It would chime like a bell. The piers must be hollow, since the wooden deck which apparently supports and surrounds them could not bear the weight of so much masonry. Wits might observe that this is a hollow house for a hollow man.

Not that he's not entitled to live in whatever kind of appalling house he wants to, of course. Just as we're quite entitled to judge him for that choice. As architect Claude Megson said when reflecting on the appalling artistic choices of Alan Gibbs (this was back in the eighties when Gibbs was advising on how taxpayers' money should be divvied up), if these people don't have the taste or even the honesty they were even born with, how can we trust them in any other sense?

Monday, January 07, 2008

Turning out coffee-coloured people by the score ...

Lindsay Mitchell has a couple of fair questions about local race relations. Given the graph below, "Why do some people persist with separatism as a principle for policy formation?" and "why do we have a party based on race?" Answers on a tokenist postcard, please.

And another thing: why (as I'm reliably informed is the case) are teachers required by the Ministry of Education to determine the race of children in their care, and if in doubt to unilaterally declare them Maori? Aren't the liberal ruling classes supposed to be against racism? Or is that just empty words for the proletariat.

Smoking, lies & the nanny state

There are two kinds of celebrities who do 'issues.' The first kind are the vacuous joiners, adopting popular causes to either bolster flagging careers or boost new ones. Then there are those who use whatever profile they have to promote causes they actually believe in.

Musician Joe Jackson (right) is the second kind. Explains the Telegraph:

Not for Jackson the populist flag-waving of Third World debt relief, global warming or the anti-landmine movement. In his more bloody-minded moments he says he feels like "standing up and saying, 'Actually, I quite like landmines!'"

For the past 10 years, Jackson has been a staunch defender of the rights of smokers. As a moderate five-a-day man, he is principally motivated by suspicion of the covert agenda of the anti-smoking lobby, which he dismisses as "a new Prohibition, a racket hugely driven by the pharmaceutical companies in partnership with the World Health Organisation" ...

"Mean-spirited" is his favourite description for everything from our obsession with vacuous celebrities to the ubiquitous CCTV cameras and chronic shortage of watering holes with late licences. News that smoking was to be outlawed in public places in [Britain] came as the last straw.

2007 'Not PC' Stats

2007 was a good year for Not PC, with a steady and solid rise in readers, comments and feedback, and heartening signs of rational libertarian arguments first appearing here being picked up and ranged around far and wide -- which is after all what Not PC is here for. Feel free to keep that up; attribution is optional.

Monthly figures for 2008 range from January's 9,761 visits (it took a few weeks to get going again last year) to an October high of 45,870. The highest day was 3rd October, with 1386 visitors recording 2058 hits. Totals for the year were:

277,257 visits from 108,644 visitors. 429,641 hits For the last quarter of 2007, I was averaging 1035 visits per day, recording 1653 hits.

Unlike DPF, I can't easily tell you how many posts there were, or how many comments. I can tell you there's been 4,578 posts since I started here in April 2005, and a whole slew of comments, most of which are intelligent and illuminating -- unlike some blogs we could name but won't. (According to Tumeke!, I average 30 posts per week, making that approx. 1500 posts this year. No wonder my fingers are sore. At an average of 300 words per post, that would make nearly half-a-million words. Phew!)

If readership like this gets your advertising juices flowing, then feel free to email me to discuss your plans at organon@ihug.co.nz. This is, after all, "published by me on a commercial basis."

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Ranking the local blogosphere (update)

It had to happen. The NZ (political) blogosphere has been ranked. It's early days yet, and still decidedly speculative (and sometimes wrong -- I'm rated as "Right" for example), but the boys at Tumeke! have put together a system to decide who outranks whom in the local political blogosphere, to make a list which they propose to update monthly. See here. Should be interesting watching, especially in election year when a welter of tribal blogs emerge into barking sunlight with a feral glee when election fever strikes, only to wither away again in ignominy once the fever departs.

Yours truly enters the lists this month at number five...

UPDATE: "Bah, humbug," says Paul at the Fundy Post. At least, that's how I'd characterise his review of what Tumeke's blog rankings show up:

The problem with blogs is that the political chaps want to have their say, so they set up blogs and link to all the other political chaps. Blogging is serious business, for serious people. The real political blogs are joined by fake ones – politicians pretending to be bloggers. The non-political blogs, often written by people with specialist interests who know what they are talking about, don't get a look in. Writing skills count less than political allegiances. And the result is a list like this, where many of the entries, whether left or right, are unreadable. Not that Mr Selwyn is at fault in compiling this list. The dominance of political blogs seems to be a natural feature of the blogging ecosystem and is self-perpetuating. Among those political blogs are writers who are informed about the issues and can present the arguments. It is just a shame about the rest.

The world's weirdest legal cases

My favourite is the story of German lawyer, Dr Juergen Graefe, who acted for an elderly pensioner sent a tax demand for €287 million, even though the woman’s income was only €17,000. Dr Graefe fixed the problem with one standard letter to the authorities, but as German law entitles him to calculate his fee based on the amount of the reduction he obtained, his fee came to €440,234 (£308,000). It was met by the state.

The year is 1907...

The year is 1907. One hundred years ago. What can happen in just one century (figures are American, unless otherwise stated) ---

* The average life expectancy in the U.S was 47 years. * The five leading causes of death were:

Pneumonia and influenza

Tuberculosis

Diarrhea

Heart disease

Stroke

* More than 95 percent of all births took place at home. * One-hundred in every one-thousand babies died before their first birthday. * Antibiotics were yet to be invented. * There was no income tax, no central banks and no passports. * Only 14% of U.S. homes had a bathtub. * Only 8% of U.S. homes had a telephone. * There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads in the whole of continental America. * The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph. * The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower. * The average wage in 1907 was 22 cents per hour. * The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year. * A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year. * Frank Lloyd Wright designed the 'Fireproof House for $5000' (above) for the 'Ladies Home Journal.' * Meanwhile, timber villas in Auckland's Grey Lynn were changing hands for two hundred pounds. * Sugar cost four cents a pound. * Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. * Coffee was fifteen cents a pound. * Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo. * Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason. * The American flag had 45 stars. * The population of Las Vegas, Nevada was only 30. * Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn't been invented yet. * There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day. * Only six percent of all Americans had graduated from high school. Nine out of every 10 adults were able to read and write, (nineteen out of twenty native Americans, but only five out of every ten negroes). * Blacks were called negroes. * Marijuana, Heroin, and Morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect 'guardian of health'." * Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help. * There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.A.

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years . . . and feel free to add your own snippets in the comments.[Adapted from a post at Earth Changes Media]

Tip Jar

In America, they tip. In NZ, we shout beer. If you like the service here at Not PC, drop a tip in the tip jar and you can do both.

Recent
Comments

Arise, Sir Ed.This was his mountain. That's how a man like Sir Ed celebrates a huge achievement.

I guess it had nothing to do with the prospect of spending several days in piss-sodden clothes being not only unpleasant but rather impractical and unhygenic? Sometimes, Peter, a cigar is just a cigar and taking a leak means nothing more than your bladder being full.

I really do hope there is an afterlife, and Sir Edmund is having a good laugh at the over-wrought bullshit that's being written about him.
I think that's the whole point of the story, Craig.
Actually, according to Sir Ed, when Tenzing stuck his ribbons in the snow he remembered to pull out the cross that the party leader had given him and planted it alongside Tenzing's offerings.

Then they both had a piss and went home.

JC
Well said JC.It speaks volumes that PC would belittle Tenzing for giving praise to his god!P.C cannot stand such displays of reverence. I am no Buddhist yet I cannot stand PCs irreverence!Nor was Sir Ed an Egoist!He was an Altruist!His final concerns were not for monuments, nor to inspire acts of vainglory but for charity for Nepal!He said he did not conquer Everest but that the mountain relented!He was humble!Then he spent his life helping others! (That was the sort of Man Hillary was!)He was a true Hero of Mankind not a cantankerous fiction writer!He was not selfish.And He was appalled that Mark Inglis chose personal glory over trying to save a mans life! (Which you PC publicly praised!)Objectivism is as repugnant a philosophy as it is naïve, and impotent.Its claim to 'a sense of life' is nothing but shallow vain glory and bigoted contempt for others whom reject atheism and selfishness.You praise Dawkins in spite of his utter stupidity!Yet even he states the fundamental consequence of atheism and evolution which you ignore... that according to Atheist 'Monism' there is no such thing as Right and wrong, only cold materialistic indifference and that Man is no better than a rash growing on a rock! (The blind watchmaker)Hillary believed in an intelligent God, yet that he was too big to care for little mankind.He was not religious…nor am I.Objectivists are so twisted as to try and give soulless/spiritless man spiritual significance of rights!It fails.Lesson number one PC.Materialism = determinism = Nihilism (brutish survival of the fittest)Whereas Spiritualism = Freedom (freewill)= Morality!You are a superstitious man PC and have abandoned reason by granting Matter the power of freewill. You are an animist like the tribal savage!

Atheism is Anti Man, anti freedom, pro brutality!Rand’s 'sense of life is phoney!'A cover for the blackness of having no god and the delusion of ‘self deification’.Any valid ‘sense of life you have is because you are wonderfully made!You misappropriate Gods due Glory for yourself!While you might say..."I see no God"...you cannot escape seeing his glorious handiwork in yourself and in the world around you.Yet there is no grounds for you to worship yourself as you had little to do with any of this.You are a creature not the Creator!God is love.You hate him and blaspheme him because you don’t like any higher authority than your own whim, or anyone who would take away the pleasure you get from kissing yourself while putting the boot into the humble, and selfless heroes who bow low before their God!Objectivist egoism, like all atheism has absolutely nothing to offer Hillary or Me but snide jibs!Why would any reasonable and loving person wish to join you lot?I pray for your soul and your enlightenment, and your freedom from the lies of Rand and Dawkins.Your friend in liberty.Tim Wikiriwhi
Tim, you've just gone well over your one-paragraph limit -- but since this is so amusing I'll leave your post up this time.

But do try to keep respectful and on topic, old chap, even when you're just posting satire.
Tim

What a load of bullshit you have presented. It really is vomit.

There is no spirit-monster-god-creator-monkeymotion-pixie-devil-ghost-thing somewhere/nowhere/out-there. It is all myths and legends and primitive lies. The trouble is that people like you keep embracing it.

Years ago I knew a guy who was into UFOs and stuff like that. He raved on about anal probes and was into the details about alien procedures (pretty much like religos are into hacking off little children's sex organs or parts thereof). Then he raved on about the "greys" and their plans and how they were "coming". Pretty much like the "second coming" you religos rave on about really. It's all the same shit. Dirty, filthy, mindless shit. I ended up telling him to get his mind out of these dirty stories and start looking at the here and now and seeing what life has to offer. There are so many wonderful and interesting things to see and do. REALITY. No-one has to retreat into a fictious world of theo-illogical myths and nightmares. "Lift your head and see reality as it is," was my recommenadation. Stop making up stories about it. They are unnecessary.

He eventually admitted he was hiding from reality because that way he didn't need to examine his own situation and how he'd got himself there (due to his own failings). Hooray! The truth.

You should abandon the nonsense and kick it into touch. Get real and deal with your life properly. Get off your knees.

LGM
Hehe, the following LGM line should be printed and distributed to all churches in the country. It would probably help deluded religious believers get back to reality.

There is no spirit-monster-god-creator-monkeymotion-pixie-devil-ghost-thing somewhere/nowhere/out-there.
There's no government like no government...
Great opportunity for a PR from the Libz.
Nazism = Socialism = Totalitarianism
You forgot to mention our own 'National Socialist' party and their fascism of the 1990s...
A fascist state is not a socialist state.Socialism is the Dark side of the Enlightenment Tradition.

Fascism is the Dark side of the Romantic tradition.

Lenin's and Mao's communism combine the dark side of both.The Greens are not socialists - they are fascists.The Green movement begins in Germany around the middle of the 19th Century.
Owen : "The Greens are not socialists - they are fascists.The Green movement begins in Germany around the middle of the 19th Century."

Spot on. In Nazi Germany the exclusive use of native plants became the landscape architect's swastika.

In a manner of gross, PC, over-compensation the Brooklyn Botanical Garden states:

"especially at a time of rising anti-immigrant sentiment, we need to be aware that our ideas about gardening can have unintended social consequences.And so I think we should avoid the terms "alien plant" and "invasive alien." :)

So are native invasive or non-native invasive plantsin the same category? "I think the origin of that approach is that most people consider [native invasives] natural; they were not brought here by us"; they are problems because of the "changes wrought by our activities." Non-native invasives, on the other hand, "were brought here by us"; "we were the vector."

Hmm... who would think plants could become so racist and fascist.

Amercan landscape architect Jens Jenson in a 1937German journal says:"The gardens that I created myself...shall express a spirit of America, and therefore shall be free of foreign character as far as possible. The Latin and the Oriental...creep more and more over our land, coming from the South, which is settled by Latin people, and also from other centers of mixed masses of immigrants. The Germanic character of our race, of our cities and settlements, [has been] overgrown by foreign character. Latin spirit has spoiled a lot, and still spoils things every day."

Great post PeterLiz The Landscape Designer Denialist
I cannot see how Reisman can argue that Nazi Germany was de facto socialist because of wage controls and then say that the US today doesn't have ANY form of socialism when they have wage controls.
I think you and Trevor are wrong about Hitler and Mussolini being left-wing. While Hitler was certainly a totalitarian like Stalin, Stalin was of the totalitarian Left because under his regime the means of production, distribution and exchange, and even people's homes, were state owned and controlled. Under Hitler’s totalitarian regime, private enterprise and ownership remained, making him demonstrably of the Right.

Anyway Trevor’s declarations on this subject are fascinating and deserve a wider audience, so I have blogged about them myself.
More fundamentally, both Nazism and Socialism are dogmas and operate in spite of reason. Nazism and Socialism have this in common with all regligions, which is why the standard objection among the religious to socialism, which is that it produces harm by suppressing organised religion, is wrong. Socialism simply replaced one dogma with another, and unsurprisingly many people died as a result.

I think it was Sam Harris who said that massive harm was never caused by people who were too reasonable.Under Hitler’s totalitarian regime, private enterprise and ownership remained, making him demonstrably of the Right.

I am out of my depth on this one, but it seems to me that the the existence of some form of legitimate private property is not sufficient on its own to make Hitler right wing. You dont need to abolish all private property before finally being declared a leftie.

In any case, the question of where on the political spectrum Hitler lay is not answered by looking at private or public ownership, but by who has control. Is decision making centralised or de-centralised? If it is centralised, the exact method of achieving that is incidental and should not affect position on the political spectrum.
Well said, Matty...there is far too much labelling of chaps as being "Right Wing" or "Left Wing" when they are effectively neither.
Read Mein Kampf you stupid, ignorant, people. Hitler was a socialist. He says so himself.

Horst.
A fascist state is not a socialist state.Socialism is the Dark side of the Enlightenment tradition.

Fascism is the Dark side of the Romantic tradition.

Lenin's and Mao's communism combine the dark side of both.The Greens are not socialists - they are fascists.The Green movement begins in Germany around the middle of the 19th Century.D3 goldeq2 gold
Iraq death count "wildly exaggerated"
The wild exaggerations follow on from the times trade sanctions were in place and the left wing were claiming 500,000 children had died due to the sanctions.

Some leftie journalist won a major award for that story, and when the numbers were debunked, for some reason she was not tarred and feathered and he award stripped from her. We take back Gold medals off athletes when found using illegal drugs, but let journalists off the hook for lying.

Bad form really.
I see your wild exaggeration of half a mill and raise you 1,165,204
I agree that it's anyone's guess how many people have died in Iraq.

Nevertheless, what I want to know is whether you support the war or not?

I don't really see it as a left-right issue over admitting the fact that a shitload of people have died because of the US invasion, whatever the exact number is.
Speaking of which, remember the story about babies being thrown out of incubators?
Remember Gulf War 1?

In the aftermath it was suggested that 100-200,000 died as a result. Subsequent tallies reduced this to beyween 20-35,000, mainly Iraqi military after an enormous pounding of their positions prior to the main attack and subsequent "Highway of Death".

So, in a much more "friendly" invasion such as GW2 we could expect to reduce suggested casualties by 3-4 fold.. so even the 600,000 figure comes down to a more conceivable 200,000.

But no-one has put up a plausible denial of the much more rigorous Iraqbodycount with its less than 100,000 beyond beyond "Oh, they couldn't possibly have got all/most of them".Hello? In a country with a million cell phones and 100s of real keen Iraqi media stringers out to supply desperately wanted bad shit to a Western media?

As for the Lancet figures.. you know you have a problem when your figures for Anbar province indicate that every male over the age of 15 is dead.. and no-one noticed.

JCa shitload of people have died because of the US invasion

Yes - but the US forces did not kill them, other Muslims did.

The Lancet destroyed a reputation built up over more than a century with one ill-considered publication. NEJM is now the premier medical publication.Yes - but the US forces did not kill them, other Muslims did.

This is a great example of the brains-o-shit over simplifications that I have come to expect from the regulars here, could you conceive, even for a second in that vacuum you call a head that this statement might not be completely rigorous.
And of course, Saddam had promised not to kill any more of his own people. Which still outnumbered the deaths relating directly to the US-invasion.

Meanwhile, as lefties discuss the benefits of a non-interventionist approach to life, 4 million people in the DRC died.

1 million in Rwanda.

And now we are looking at Kenya smoldering like a small fire on the edge of summer.

But wait, let me guess. The lefties will now condemn the USA for NOT intervening in these countries.

Well, I'm happy to condemn the U.N for intervening, and making things worse. Oh, that reminds me. Sierra Leone. Another U.N stuff up.
600k is a big number and so demands suspicion. It's more than the Allied dead in all theatres from WW2.
"a shitload of people have died because of the US invasion"And a shitload of people haven't died in Saddam's prisons and torture rooms and under his chemical bombs since he was hanged.Mind you, I'm sure Iraqis miss the fun of the hunt for relatives among the skeletons in the mass graves.Damn Americans!
Centro idrico Vigna Murata - Mark Zanuso and Eduardo Victoria
Well, not exactly, it's called "Centro Idrico EUR" and has been designed by the italian architect Francesco Palpacelli, who has a strong background in this field.

The picture you probably saw with Marco Zanuso and Eduardo Victoria is just about a meeting they had in 1989 with Mr. Palpacelli. They're not involved with the design of this (IMHO) amazing structure.

ciao!
Minto vs history (updated)
Wonderfully written and researched Peter. Julian
Aren't Bookmarks the neatest thing? Here's one I saved from a report from the US Treasury

http://tinyurl.com/3yfp67

This shows that between 1995 and 2005 that the poorest US citizens increased their income 90.5%, and the top 1% suffered a decrease in income of 25%.

And guess who pays most of the taxes?

JC
Here's the US taxes.

http://tinyurl.com/2k4hkq

The top 1% pay 37% of the taxes.

JC
Great post Peter.
Why do you have to post things like Minto's column that make me so angry? I want more stories about fluffy bunnies and nice architecture. It's too late in the day for me to be pounding head on desk.

You mentioned ghosts: ever read "Hungry Ghosts"? It's a chronicle of starvation under a no property rights system: Mao's China. Bryan Caplan reviews it here.
Minto: The free-market polices Labour forced on the country in an undemocratic policy blitzkrieg in the 1980s have been well documented as has the ensuing descent into poverty of hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders. It's worth remembering that democratic rights, to the extent we have them, were never granted freely to anyone. People have only gained civil and political rights after bitter, violent struggles.

Is that a threat? Or a statement of intent?
I have just dashed this off and sent it to the Herald.At least Garth George got something right today.

John Minto’s strange understanding of Property.

The poor people of the world should be thankful that Mike Moore sits on the UN’s Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor rather than John Minto.John Minto’s understanding of what enables nations to create and distribute wealth is abysmal. Maybe one does not need any understanding of such matters to be a spokesman on Peace and Justice, but when dealing with economic growth and development it surely helps.John Minto claims that, given the makeup of the commissioners (which includes the Peruvian Economist Hernando De Soto), the commission can only increase poverty rather than reduce it, evidently because at least some of the other commissioners are Americans – a grievous sin.Mr Minto tells us that such Americans can only create poverty because “The US has the highest levels of poverty in the Western World (more than 30 million)” and asks “Why would this be?”The answer is simple. The US Official Poverty Rate (the OPR) is based on calculations that are available from the year 1959 onward, and for the total population of the U.S., the OPR declined by nearly half over this period, from 22.4 percent in 1959 to 12.7 percent in 2004. It seems Americans do know something about reducing poverty.Also, millions of Americans can be declared to be in poverty because the UN poverty index is based on the percentage of the population with disposable incomes of less than 50% of the median. Hence, any household whose income is less than half the median income for that nation is deemed to be living in poverty. On this basis those “poverty stricken” American families not only have hot and cold clean running water, flush toilets, electricity, but typically have one or more cars, at least one television, several telephones, and even own their own homes, many of which are air conditioned. The UN test means that when the median American household income reaches one million dollars a year, a family living on 499,000 dollars a year will still be deemed to be living “in poverty”. Using the New Zealand index they could be earning $600,000 a year and still be “in poverty”.I am not at all sure why Mr Minto assumes that Americans are experts on creating poverty rather than wealth.Some poverty indices have truly bizarre outcomes – especially those which focus on where families sit relative to average income. John Minto bewails the fact that the very rich in the US have very high incomes. One way to reduce poverty might be to persuade them to up stakes and take their wealth to other less fortunate nations. However, if Bill Gates decided to migrate to a poor country like New Zealand his settlement here could increase the number of New Zealand families officially living in poverty because his massive income would considerably increase the average household income and hence throw hundreds, if not thousands, more families, and even their children, into poverty. We always have to examine the fine print when it comes to measurements of poverty.Would we turn Bill Gates away because of the wrong choice of “average”?Mr Minto claims that “Property rights are there to benefit the wealthy and the middle class. They mean much less, if anything, to people who live in poverty.” By his own measure, many Maori families live in poverty. Perhaps he should explain to them why property rights don’t matter and why their concerns over their property rights to the seabed and foreshore are of no consequence, and presumably totally misguided.As Hernando de Soto explains, secure property rights are important to people living on the margin. If poor people own a piece of land and hence the buildings on it, when fire strikes they work to save the house. If they are squatters they rush to save the furniture.It would appear that Mr Minto has a limited appreciation of what rights in property actually cover. Because he is living in a democracy, under the rule of law, he enjoys rights to property in his own life and labour, in his personal effects, his land, his building, his car, his works of art – including his own writings – and even his religious or ideological beliefs. I am sure he appreciates these rights in all his property, even if he seems to think they are of little consequence to others less well off than himself. If some burglar steals his furniture will he not call the police? Does slavery not offend him?When the ordinary people of England fought to secure their property rights over the years they were all living in poverty by contemporary standards. The incomes of those Americans in the “wild” Western States, who fought to win their private land rights off the Federal Government, were lower than those of many poor Africans today. Does Mr Minto really think they did not know what they were doing?

Mike Moore is not peddling myths about property rights. He is only repeating what more and more African politicians and analysts are saying on behalf of their own people.Their constant theme is “We want trade – not aid.” And it is remarkably difficult to trade in anything unless you have secure property rights in the things you want to sell. If Mr Minto were to travel to these countries, of which he claims to know so much, and tried to tell the local people that property rights don’t count, he would be laughed out of the room – unless of course he was talking to someone like President Mugabe who certainly shares his opinions.940 words.Owen McShane
Well said Owen....I would have been more cutting towards that lying idiot...one devestating fact that Comrade Minto won't like is that the average balck American has a higher standard of living that the average welfare state Swede...
For what its worth my view on Minto is on my blog, Anti-Dismal, here
"The United States is one of the richest countries in the world (2nd behind Kuwait), and in 2000, the mean wealth was $144,000 per person.[6] In the United States at the end of 2001, 10% of the population owned 71% of the wealth, and the top 1% controlled 38%. On the other hand, the bottom 40% owned less than 1% of the nation's wealth.

In 2003, the most-earning 1% of the population in the United States, which has a system of progressive taxation, paid over 34% of the nation's federal income tax; the most-earning 10% bore 66% of the total tax load; the top 25% of income earners paid 84% of the income taxes; and the upper half accounted for virtually the entire U.S. income tax revenue (nearly 97%).

However, if the federal taxation rate ("Individual Income Tax Rates and Shares, 2004." (2006) published by IRS) is compared with the wealth distribution rate the net wealth (not only income but also including real estate, cars, house, stocks, etc) distribution of the United States does almost coincide with the share of income tax - the top 1% pay 36.9% of federal tax (wealth 32.7%), the top 5% pay 57.1% (earning 57.2%), top 10% pay 68% (wealth 69.8%), and the bottom 50% pay 3.3% (wealth 2.8%)"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth#_note-6
"Real estate

In particular, it can be argued that the large increases in property values of recent years has had the effect of redistributing the wealth from those without property to those with property.

The impact is more profound on people at lower income levels who are more likely to rent their home rather than own it outright. The poor are generally less likely to make rational decisions concerning risk, and therefore are more easily targeted by the aggressive marketing of subprime lenders"Same link
Owen McShane said...I have just dashed this off and sent it to the Herald.

Well done Owen, your article made it today to the NZ Herald perspective section. I already read your excellent article here at Not PC.
Nixon in New Hampshire
Oh Peter...gosh :P

President Nixon was a great man.A leader, an Anti-Communist Freedom lover, a man who believed that trade and peace were preferable to war and barriers.

Hillary Clinton, however, is a nasty piece of work, almost as big a liar has her disgraceful Husband, a captive to 'special interests' and Big Government.

You may as well say "John Key is the Ayn Rand of the National Party" for all the validity of the comparisons.
What you've done, Elijah, is compare Nixon's good qualities with Clinton's bad ones. Of course there is no correlation between the two. However, if you compare good with good and bad with bad, they are remarkably similar politicians, and Hillary is indeed, the Nixon of the Left.
Yes, indeed I have highlighted Nixon's good qualities, Blair , because I do not believe Nixon had particlarly bad qualities.

There is a slight difference between "bad" qualities as an absolute, and "bad" qualities invented and perpetuated by the Washington Post.

Clinton is genuinely evil, advocating an extremist Socialist agenda, whereas the 'Nixon Bad Points' (so to speak) are merely aspects of being human, and can be easily responded to with the question 'so what?'

Nixon liked to drink scotch..well..so what?

Nixon hated a few people (with good reason)..well..so what?

Nixon was shy with new people...so what?

Nixon used to swear...well..so what?

etc...etc...
Nixon authorised wiretapping and break-ins on his political enemies... so what?

Nixon bombed Cambodia without congressional authorisation and in full defiance of the US Constitution... so what?

Nixon tried to cover up the criminal activity of his associates and organised hush-money payments to keep it under wraps... so what?

Dumbarse.
Oh Blair..gosh..lol

President Nixon did none of the things you mention....(see what I was meaning about Washington Post fictions being perpetuated vis a vis 'facts' when it comes to Nixon?)

Next you will be telling Hillary had Vince Foster murdered and the bizarre and braindamaged "Clinton Chronicles" are true and factual! LOL!! ..(as a comparison with Nixon)
Gosh Elijah...what a facility you have for historical revisionism!

Most of us chaps have heard of the original 'smoking gun'...have you? LOL!!! Gosh!

DenMT
Nixon & Kissingers dialog with the Chinese leadership was remarkable.They say Reagan ended the cold war, but Nixon started the end of the cold war. He was a pragmatic man but also a hell of a diplomat when he put his mind to it. Old school America at its finest.

I read the NYT article and I have to say that your conclusion is a fairly it's a pretty long bow to draw on the evidence presented.

I've no love for Hillary, but still...
Yes, well spotted. I was uncomfortable with the wording of what I wrote. I think what I've corrected it with now appears more accurate.
Trevor certainly knows how to wind them up though. In the comments section of one of his posts he says he regards the National Front, the Italian fascists and the German Nazis as left wing. I kid you not.
And, interestingly enough, as this thread at Kiwiblog shows...

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2008/01/from_a_reader.html#comments

National are once again *not* the answer as the "reader" with the sign on his property would still be breaking the old National Party laws that they want to revert to.

Gotta have your name on there so the people at Indymedia can hunt you down.
"hunt you down" Eric? That'd be a bit like being hunted by enraged hamsters. :-)
This is something I have found a bit worrying in the past both as a candidate and as a blogger. I choose not be anonymous, but I understand the concerns of those who don't want their address to become public knowledge.

Poneke: Its not so hard to believe. While the social conservatism of the National Front and other fascists is a right-wing trait, their economic policies - including appeals to the working class, rejection of globalization and xenophobic opposition to foreign ownership - are typically leftist. They weren't called the "National Socialists" for nothing.
Holiday viewing
I started writing about what I've been watching, but ended up writing a post instead.
Depressing
Oswald should change his accountant, (Bob Jones boasted once that he didn't pay any tax)
Holiday House 2 - Organon Architecture
My ideal bach is rectangular, has ventilation, no windows. Looks just like a cinema room :)

Mark Hubbard
And what would you ideally be looking at in there?
My ideal holiday batch would be something that all I had to clean was the most dominating feature, namely windows.

The interior would have zero dust magnets like skirting boards, window pelmets. everything would be flush and made entirely out of material that dust would not stick to. The one wipe wonder!

I would want two dishwashers. One to house a set of dishes to use and the other to house the dirty ones. Yeah, rotation baby!

100% of all the cooking would be done outside with a combination open fire, gas and spit roast barbie.

There would be an outdoor kitchen, with a separate set up to cope with filleting fish and game.

I also have this thing about tents, they do it for me every time. So perhaps a tent like structure for daytime living. Something to sit in and to sleep in (especially if it is raining and the urge is overwhelming).

My ideal batch is something robust where you can be 100% comfortable not to break, stain, scratch or ruin anything you stand on, sit in, cook in or party in.

Minimal fuss, maximum comfort and maximum outdoors.
Zero emissions? Only of good sense.
Ah, so it's CO2 coming out of Al Gore's mouth!

I figured he was talking so much bullshit, he meant he'd get his methane down by shutting up.
I agree with all of this post, but I took Gore to be referring to purchasing carbon offsets, something he himself does. Assuming carbon offsets do what they say they do, there is then no contradiction.
Something he himself does from his own Carbon Offset company...
So tell me PC, do you think the human body magically spawns carbon when you exhale? Of course not, it comes from the food we eat, which ordinarily gets it from the air. Normal human activity, IE breathing, is carbon neutral. Burning fossil fuel takes carbon out of the ground - where it would have stayed - and dumps it into the air. Big difference.
Extract from Jeremy Clarkson's latest column in the Sunday Times:

You’d imagine then that last week, when Gordon Brown announced plans for a herd of new nuclear power stations, they’d have been delighted. Quiet power made by witchcraft, and no emissions at all...

But no. It turns out the eco-mentalists don’t like nuclear power either for lots of reasons, all of them stupid. They worry about what would happen if a reactor blew up. Which is a bit like worrying about living in a house in case a giant meteorite lands on it.

According to The Dominion Post, we're the sunniest of the five main centres (AKL, WGN, CHC, Dunedin and Hamilton), and apart from the occasional heavy rainfall, the weather has been very good, exceptional by Welly standards.
Auckland's planners giving developers the heave-ho
My grandmother died last year leaving section she brought in St Heliers in 1943, paying 200 quid. She kept it and left it to her family to develop. We are in the process of doing so. It is a full section, zoned for two houses.

These are SOME of the costs we have been told, by the council

“Reserve Contribution” : $41,250

“Park Enhancement” : $3,625

“Community Services”: $1,082.25

“Stormwater fee” : $4,185

“Transport Levy: $878

Now we are not developers – merely doing something to a piece of land owned by the family for over 60 years. These costs don’t cover one nail being put in – or one footing being dug. $51,000 just for the right to subdivide OUR land.
Actually the development contributions are the result of the Local Government Act. The RMA allowed for development levies but there had to be a nexus between the application and the levy. This frustrated the planners and councillors the LGA allows for councils to levy for anything they like but mainly for "the costs of growth".The LGA is much wore than the RMA because it allows unfettered interference with property rights with no rights of formal submissions or appeals.
Tauranga is just as bad.

The 'reserve contribution'is purportedly required to satisfy a LGA (or RMA, I dont know) requirement that a reserve be created for every x lots.

The council 'argument' goes, that since the reserve must be in the 'vicinity' of the lots being taxed, the tax should be based on the land value of the lot so that equivalent land can be bought for the reserve. i.e land in Remuera is more valuable than land in Otara, both lots and reserve land.

Beachfront properties are the most valuable of all, and their 'reserve contributions' per sq m are likely to be several times greater than their landward neighbour, yet both properties to are be serviced by the same reserve. So it is a sham.

The beach lot will also incur rates several times greater than its landward neighbours. I asked the TCC how the rateable values were calculated - they were adamant that these were not 'market valuations', rather they were some sort of 'intrinsic value' assessed by the council. Interesting then, that land which according to council estimates will be under water in 50 years is considered to have far greater intrinsic value than its landward neighbour which according to those same council predicitons will be beachfront property in 50 years.
Don't vote National
Oh VERY well done!
This part of the editorial really jumped out at me:"The commission explains that an "authorising" statement is required on exempted material just as on paid political advertising."

So, in reality, no political speech is truly exempt! Free speech has just been killed in NZ.they will need to be aware that should their site acquire more than one author

That's an interesting comment. So blogs are exempt, but not group blogs?

The legislation looks more and more confusing.

I'm already getting emails on how to avoid advertising your address to some Greenie nutjob that happens to live around the corner and has a spare brick: A really good offer
dontvotenational linking to everybodies faaaavorite website? Ha ha :) Good score!
Oh dear, looks like you just made some money from your political observations ;)
Problem is that the "boil a frog" thing is a myth.

Professor Doug Melton, Harvard University Biology Department, says, "If you put a frog in boiling water, it won't jump out. It will die. If you put it in cold water, it will jump before it gets hot -- they don't sit still for you."

So perhaps there's hope for us. Most of us like to think we are a little bit smarter than frogs.
"Problem is that the "boil a frog" thing is a myth."really? amazing!Wodathunk it, eh? /sarc
I've certainly boiled a lot of eggs in my time, and not one of them ever thought of escaping.
Obviously, they weren't laboratory eggs Zen.
As several people have pointed out today, this website is now also in breach of the EFA:

www.labour.org.nz

Seems that they have neglected to add an authorization.
Now THIS is what I call a holiday house ...
I've never been a fan of those... I'll call them "fin thingys" - what are they for?
"Fin thingies"? You mean the pergolas?

Perfect for shading that harsh summer sun. Perfect for expressing the horizontal line of the house. Perfect for blurring the boundaries of where the house begins and ends. Perfect for taking the eye out into the landscape...

What's not to like?
How would the pergolas block the sun if they are already in the shade of the large overhang (as the pictures shows)?
Good question, Joe.

The answer is that those pictures who the house at mid-afternoon in mid-summer, when the sun is high, and you want shade.

But in winter, when the sun is lower in the sky and you want to welcome the sun in and have it warm your floors, the pergolas (or sun shades if you like) act simply as filters, allowing the sun in but taking away the glare.

I'll post a picture later showing the house at the same time in winter so you can get some idea of the effect.
THAT is a beach house!

For modern times, not detracting from the good old NZ shanty!
Excellent effort that. When and where are you going to build it?
And I like that balcony. If it is done right it would be like floating over space. Especially good if the house is over a decent valley. Give some sections of the balcony a transparent floor. It'd be a perfect feature.

Where you gong to build?

LGM
Much better than Mr Key's place. It has been designed for its location, not just to fill a plot.
Hi PC and welcome back. Check your email!

The planning absolutely works for me in terms of offering all of the living space up to the sun and the view, although it strikes me that you've been a bit mean with the access - one set of bifolds to what I'll assume is the west, and a somewhat odd arrangement of three hinged doors all opening on the same side of the leaf to the eastern living space.

I wonder however, why that eastern living space has the large yellow element plonked between it and the 'view' out to the west (assuming there is one). It seems that particular space only has an aspect out to the north, which to me is a missed opportunity. I'm also not convinced by the bedrooms (looks like about 400mm to squeak past the end of the beds in there - holiday houses aren't built for bedroom comfort for sure, but there are limits!)

The massive cantilevering deck is a bold move (what is that, 15m?) - impressive, but the pessimist in me balks at the amount of steel that would be required to pull it off, and whether that sort of cantilever would even be possible? I wonder whether there might be another way to achieve the feeling of lightness that the cantilever achieves. Also as a compositional element it is very strong but something about the scale relative to the house is a bit jarring.

I also find it somewhat hard to believe the apparent depth of the canopy over the carport. If that too is cantilevering (at what, 8ish metres?) it would surely not look as slender and fine as shown in the render.

A final comment, and this is purely personal preference: I reckon you should have either rendered without materials, or traced over the render in butter paper and used that. The problem with 'realistic' rendering is that once you go down that track and present something outside of the sketchy, possibility-laden hand drawing the eye expects a greater level of realism and detail than what is shown. It might just be because modelling is one of my 'things' - I lavish as much time as I can scrape away from other stuff on 3D imaging - but the tiling of the grass texture and other materials together with the 'realistic' model combine to make the image look somewhat cartoony.

DenMT

PS: Without wanting to be all pedantic and things, as I've always understood it a pergola is above your head in an outdoor space. Those 'fins' would be 'louvres', surely?
Hi Den,

Great comments. I thank you for them. However I think the rather small floor plans I've provided might have put a little wrong, and my error in not putting a north point might hav confused you (for clarity, the cantilevered deck points north). And, naturally, there may be a couple of philosophical differences.

OPENINGS: There are six main external access openings, the size and scale of each responding to its position, and to what it relates to outside:

1. Large sliders from the bedroom gallery to the south-eastern 'morning courtyard.'2. Three hinged glass doors from breakfast area oriented east and south to the 'morning courtyard.'3. Three hinged glass doors from the low-ceilinged Retreat to the small patio above the large deck.4. Large sliders from the lounge to the main terrace, and down and out to the large cantilevered deck.5. Bifolds from the Snack/Card Table area to the main terrace.6. Main entrance door. This is intended mainly for visitors and for loading and unloading cars. In good weather, residents would generally use Doors 5 and 6 to go in and out.

I'm fairly sure that's ample openings for a generally small internal footprint -- and in responding to context far better to my mind and in our climate than the completely open pavilions currently favoured in so much magazine architecture.

"LARGE YELLOW ELEMENT": This is intended to be a lockable bright enamel steel store containing the house's main electronic toys and taller playthings, allowing residents to go in and out without locking up the house if they don't want to. It shades the Retreat from late afternoon sun, as well as giving a bright vertical core to the house. The Retreat is intended as a contrast to the much more open Lounge -- the aspect of the Retreat is to the north-east, out over a large drop and with a fairly contained view, and in both quality of view and much greater containment than the much more open double-height lounge, it is intended as a contrast to the space of the Lounge. (The Lounge, by the way, also has its own lockable electronics 'shed' under the upstairs balcony.)

LOWER BEDROOMS: There is a larger master bedroom and en-suite above, by the way. The main access for these lower bedrooms is via sliding doors to the Gallery. The small 400-600 wide openings at the end of the wardrobe dividers are simply to help breezes and the sense of openness within these small semi-contained spaces. And I should also point out that the wardrobe units themselves are intended to move horizontally along tracks, (rather like the sliding file storage systems one finds in law libraries and the like) to open up and close bedrooms depending on who and how many people happen to be in the house for the week. It would be desirable to have the beds fold out from these sliding units so they can be stacked up real tight, making thise whole are an open Rumpus type area opening right up to the south-eastern courtyard. Pretty neat huh? ;^)

CANTILEVERED DECK: What's wrong with bold? As LGM says above, it would be like floating over space, and a perfect contrast to the containment of the Retreat -- the contrast making both feelings much stronger. To my mind the scale is commensurate with the horizontal cantilevered carport and the anchoring Yellow vertical 'Store,' and in my view taken together perfectly expresses the combination of motion and purpose that I find so striking and enjoyable in good architecture ("the freedom of release and the tension of purpose," in Ayn Rand's words). Bugger being static. Let's explode the Golden Section. ;^)

CANTILEVERED CARPORT: Carports are much better for a holiday house to my mind for holiday house, much more relaxed, and much easier to use as a form of dynamic expression. And with a root extending back to the kitchen/bathroom wall on one side and right to the far end of the house on the northern side, perfectly able to look after itself. If it needs tying down for wind flutter (as it might) it can have a small lockup placed discreetly at the south-west end.

RENDERING: You're probably right about the renderings. I still prefer rendering by hand, to be honest -- computer renderings present far too authoritatively far too early, and as you say, the grass is never right.

"FINS": And you're probably right too to call these louvres or sun-shades. But I like to think of them as much more substantial than your average louvre, and have much more of the effect to an observer than a simple sun-shade.

I designed it a few years ago simply as a design exercise, using a notional site. Although the house itself hasn't yet been built, many of the ideas within have already been. :-)
Anti-Labour website hears (but not heeds) electoral watchdog's warning
“everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shari’ah”....

Bloody fucking hell! substitute the word 'Shari'ah' with the word 'government' and that describes EXACTLY what this country has become!

For a heady enhanced flavour, try 'Electoral Finance Act'. Or 'Treaty Of Waitangi'. Or 'Climate Change'. Or 'Sustainability'. Roll these around your mouth and see how they taste, New Zealand.

Be afaid. Be very afraid. The Sahri'ah has come to every town near you.
You're on to it, Dave. Little wonder the response of the Clark Government to Fouad al-Fahran's incarceration has been so tepid.I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. - Evelyn Beatrice Hall

I disapprove of what you say, and you must register your name & address if you want to say it. - Labour government
It's not so bad, geez it's not like we're living in Stalinist Russia. So to criticise the government and suggest ousting them means you have to attach your name and address to it. It's not like the government can use the information to harass you, or direct the IRD to do a random audit on you, or add you to a centralised list of dissenters or...

And it only applies if you say "vote for party x" or "dont vote for party x". Or if you could be reasonably construed as saying "vote for party x" or "dont vote for party x". Or if you say "vote for parties of type x" or "dont vote for parties of type x". Or if you could be reasonably construed as saying "vote for parties of type x" or "dont vote for parties of type x".

Honestly, what's the kerfuffle? And even if it is a restriction on free speech we need it because anyone utilising that type of free speech is a right wing baby eater, with sinister, rich prick motives. It's okay to restrict their free speech as no good would come of it anyway!

(The above is written in dripping, venomous, sarcastic tones that are not always apparent in text form)
This is just shocking!

Hopefully the 'Don't Vote Labour' chaps have some balls and dare the Electoral Commission to take action...(I can suggest a good QC salivating at the thought of serving the Prime Minister with a witness summons, and he already has prepared his destructive and devastating cross examination once he gets her in Court)...to make a stand against this Socialist evil.
Cancer Card rescinded
Command and control education okay, says Minto
If ever the Right draws its fractious members together enough to produce a manual on how to combat leftism, "Think Gramsci" would be a fine title for it.
A nuclear Taliban
Leave the Key under the mat, please
A caravan may have been an improvement!
The words "vet clinic" spring to mind.
My old lego, ca 1982, had pieces that could have built exactly that.
Gosh..this is what happens when ghastly "Working Class people with money" go spending it!

Another reason why these types of people should not be allowed to mix with 'normal' chaps.

(I shall not even start on a critique of Mr Key's working class accent... *shudder*
Look, what is wrong with John Key's house?

It is light, has lots of doors and windows to open, a big shady deck to bbq or sit on, a no-maintenance garden. It looks bloody perfect for a bach.
It is a nice one to take Nicky Watson there for a weekend.
I can picture exactly how this monstrosity came about.Watch The Fountainhead. Howard Roarke was called into a meeting to discuss his first commission. The committee said we love what you have designed - but we want you to make THESE changes - and wheeled out a model with some hideous amendments added.Those cornices, and perhaps the random door at a random angle look like an afterthought or add-on. by some architecturally uneducated or taste-impaired persons attempt to be CREATIVE.A bit like a PC-users effort at designing their own business card, incorporating 23 different fonts, a starburst, and a rainbow gradient fill - LOVELY!
come now, gentlemen ....

a cold beer on a hot summer's day will taste just as good on John Key's deck

.... unless of course his beer isn't up to your standards, either
Ha! He probably has a fridge full of Corona. :-/
the drunken watchman said...unless of course his beer isn't up to your standards, either

Happy new year drunken watchman, how was Papamoa beach on new year's eve? Did you have a bonfire on that night and drinking Waikato beers?
a cold beer on a hot summer's day will taste just as good on John Key's deck!

. . . But if you had the choice, a cold beer on the deck of a NICE PLACE, would be preferable to a cold beer on the deck of a SLUM.

Goes to show that having money doesn't improve ones taste - or quality of thought for that matter
haha brilliant....as I've always expected with Key himself - one blow and it will all come crashing down.
remember how Bill English had professional voice coaching over a couple months back early 2002 to get RID of the southland drawl, so anything could happen with Sharkeys 'Shirley to Soho' twang.

One thing about the photo, cant be recent since well he didnt spend much time outside, not the slightest hint of a tan
"...the material uninhabitability of the slums is preferable to the moral uninhabitability of John Key's bach." - paraphrasing Hundertwasser.

Thanks for the blog, much laughter to cover the tears at the sorry state we've found ourselves in.
Turning out coffee-coloured people by the score ...And another thing: why (as I'm reliably informed is the case) are teachers required by the Ministry of Education to determine the race of children in their care

Maybe because Maori and PI kids have demonstrably lower levels of educational outcome and achievement than Pakeha kids.

It's silly to unilaterally declare kids as Maori to be sure, but I disagree it is racist.

Ideally education should be based on individualism, but that is simply not going to happen anytime soon, so I don't think there is anything wrong with targeting and tracking 'at risk' groups.
What that inevitably leads to is teachers having lower expectations for Maori/PI. The expectations become self-fulfilling.
They are lower achievers overall. That is an objective fact. Nothing racist about it.

Those who are likely to need support in schools should be targeted from the get-go,and teachers taking such data is a start...lest the Right start moaning about Maaaris on the dole and solo Mums further on down the track...as they are wont to do, eh.
Missing the point here, Lindsay and PC.

It's the unassimilated 75% of the Pakeha that's the problem for too many people. Even the Waitangi Tribunal talks in such terms where it envisages that NZers of the future will be all one colour due to interracial marriage.

At the finish of his epic "Hawaii", James Michener talks of the "Golden Men". The men and women of Hawaii who populated his narrative who had intermarried to produce the Hawaiian, Chinese, European and Japanese mix of the (late 50's) and which he held such hopes for.

But at the end, he also ascribes to his narrator, Hoxworth Hale, a so called pure European, the so called Golden Man title, because it isn't necessary for the bloods to mix.. just that the mind is flexible enough to live with, mix with, do business with, play with and clash with ideas of all races.. and not always that peaceably.

NZ has it's Golden Men, and one of them is Hone Harawira. I think he's a snake, but in one golden moment late last year he rose above race and flailed Labour over the EFA in one of the best Parliamentary speeches of a decade. He may be a snake, but that day he was the best NZer in the land.

The point? Forget race, culture and religion. Attack their representatives on all fronts, but above all, demand of us all certain basic tenants that have the potential to make the country one of the best to live in the world.. and that includes being rich enough to be the best, not some half arsed Hippy commune.

JC
"..but above all, demand of us all certain basic tenants that have the potential to make the country one of the best to live in the world.."Amen to that!
(provied I'm allowed to substitute tenets for tenants, that is.) ;-)
Smoking, lies & the nanny state
Trawler caught by Antarctic warming
2007 'Not PC' Stats
Hi PC, do you collect any statistics on the browser or operating system of your visitors? That would be interesting.
Thanks PC. That seems like a relatively high level of Firefox users - surely a sign of an intelligent audience :)
Ranking the local blogosphere (update)
Well done on that ranking. Glad to see libertarianism has an audience.
Great! And well-deserved, imho.
Thanks [bows].

That's the really gratifying part, Lindsay, proving that libertarianism really does have an audience in EnZed.
Great work PC.

You have good reason to be proud of your efforts (well, except for the persecuting Christianity part - you may well rot in hell for that).

Anyway, congratulations. Have a good 2008.
Where the hell would this hell place be?
I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you. And I don't feel like personally escorting you there.
Well deserved PC, you certainly earned it.
Hell sounds like a lovely place right now. Bloody sub-zero weather is on the way to Kansas...

Goddamned global warming needs to get here fast!

Oh, and well done PC.

:P
Beer O'Clock: Loving lager
Such a shame that The Times seem so fixated on lager, when the UK is at the forefront of the best ale brewing in the world. A great lager is fantastic but a great real ale - like a perfect loaf of fresh bread - is the epitome of civilisation.
I dunno Stu, Ale has been "saved" already by CAMRA. Perhaps Lagers need some love also, to wrest them back from the mass producers of pale, sweet, fizzy rubbish. I love a great lager, but prefer the chewy styles like bocks.
The world's weirdest legal cases
I like the way you are writing ! its very clear and fantastic!
The year is 1907...
The World population was just over 1.6 billion.Passenger pigeons used to block out the sun
Amazing stuff--and it illustrates the impossibility of predicting the future with any accuracy.What's really interesting is that the rate of change is accelerating.
2107

Communication implants

Personal codes- one number for banking, comms, ID. This is also implanted

LCD panels replace windows in housing. Look at your lounge windows and see the view of your choice.

Capacitor technology displaces batteries.

artificial gravity is produced in the laboratory

Fusion power is economical

Retroviral and nanotechnology technology greatly extends life- for those who can afford full Medical.

They will look back at 2007 and say 'Why did they let themselves get pushed around like that? Who does the government work for, anyway?'

The gap between the civilized world and rest grows much larger. For practical purposes, our technology is magic.
The Middle East is a fuming, radioactive wasteland except for Israel. Fingers crossed!

We watch the Star Wars movies and laugh at their technology.

Nobody has listened to Rap in 60 years, it is just an annoying memory in the minds of the elderly.

I hope I'm right, though I'll be 116 years old if I see the day.
"The Middle East is a fuming, radioactive wasteland except for Israel. Fingers crossed!"I'll second that. Although...it occurs to me that both America and Australia have enough room to carve out a new Israel, and the will to help protect it.